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The Impact of Technophobes
fsharp writes "Most of us have experience with average folks requesting technical support. I have friends and family members that would be lost without my support. I opt for a sliding scale payment plan, usually dinner. At any rate, The New York Times has a nice piece on the impact of technophobes on the Internet (vis-a-vis MyDoom and other email-borne viruses) and their technologically adept friends and family."
I'm glad that so many people don't understand what I do. That makes me more valuable.
I'm coin operated baby!
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I've experienced the same frustration plenty of times myself, having ushered several family members and friends on to the internet, only to be confronted by the same ridiculous ( HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?!?!?! ) behaviors.
:)
The fact of the matter is, most people treat computers like a glorified appliance. A computer should more aptly be treated like a motor vehicle; yeah, you can go have some fun in it but you'd better drive defensively and know how to operate the thing properly. You don't just take it out of the box and start pressing buttons
Can we really blame the users though? After having dealt with plenty of computer illiterates in my day, I've come to realize that advertising and computer companies are at least as responsible as the users themselves. Inasmuch as they may be advertised to be so, a computer is not "plug and play". It requires maintenance and careful attention! Computer companies have put the average consumer into a "PRES BUTAN TO INTERNET!!!" mindset, and it's a bit hard to get them out of it.
Frankly, though, I can't say that it bothers me too much. Computer illiterates are my best source of favors. You need all that spyware removed and windows reinstalled? Yeah, well I need some vodka. Of course the fact that they do a nice job of filling my inbox with crap (both viruses themselves, and spam from hijacked machines) certainly gets on my nerves, but I've got my fingers crossed waiting for the next breed of mail protocol which should solve these problems altogether.
Sometimes things just work out
It is more worth my time and money to spend $399 on the cheapo Dell PC for my dad and just have him call tech support when he needs help. Dad's not technical and my patience has worn thin for technical support of "click, double click," etc.
"So, Dad, what did Dell say when you called them? "
"I didn't call em yet"
"Okay, well, ya know we paid for that with the computer. Let's get our money's worth..."
Seems to be the best deal going for me.
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
The biggest problem is the Technolazy, people who have seen to much Star Trek, or who have been so brainwashed by the 'ctrl-alt-del' mentality, that they assume things are easy when they aren't. Driving a car, operating a VCR, or designing a website are all DIFFICULT tasks, which require attention to detail, and have strict guidelines to avoid failure.
None of this matters to the Technolazy, who stomp their feet when the "computer doesn't want to print" or when it goes "beep beep" and totally eats their very good paper. Technolazies also refuse to admit that paying for real hardware, quality software, and educated tech support is necessary - they all know someone who "kows computers". Resoning typically doesn't work, since "they heard" something from someone, and so therefore they know more than you about T1 lines, printer drivers, SCSI drives or database software.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
is that even though I barely know enough to get by a lot of the time, and really all I do is make webpages which of course anyone HERE would know doesn't have anything to do with actually operating a computer, anyone who doesn't understand the technology or can't find the power button assumes I'm some kind of 7337 hacker than can solve all their problems or tell what brand of computer they have when they say "it's one of the beige ones with a CD-ROM."
And I can't help them, I couldn't if I wanted to, and so I end up looking like a jerk to my family because I "won't" help them fix their computer and they think I'm lying about it just because I spend half my time on the internet writing plain old HTML. Now that's annoying.
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
Really. I'm fine with someone who's *intimidated* by a computer, afraid they'll break something, or just real cautious. But I lose all patience with people who are willfully ignorant and refuse to learn anything (and then conveniently blame a system or component for being "too hard").
I find that there's almost a kind of class attitude about this -- people who practice willful ignorance also think this somehow makes them more upper class or something because they're not having to sully their hands learning some technical skill. Sadly I also see a gender bias, with a lot of women taking that tact.
I actually had a huge fight with my wife about this one time. She is a marketing exec who was going on a long business trip to California. Prior to leaving, she asked their office's IT guy (small office, only one full-time admin/helpdesk guy) to configure her laptop for remote access. The night before she left, she pulled out her laptop and was *furious* that it didn't work and that it was jeopardizing other business she needed to keep up with while away. I asked her if she made any attempt to work with the IT guy, and she said no, she was too busy. I told her that it must not have been important to use remote access then, if she wasn't willing to spend 5 minutes running through it with the IT guy.
It's either important or its not, and bitching at the IT guy because you weren't willing to put ANY effort into it is total bullshit. The tools are valuable, but like it or not they are somewhat complicated and unless you work with them all the time, you need to put a small amount of effort into them to make them work for you.
And at that point her frustration with her deadlines and travel and my frustration from working with self-important marketing people dovetailed really nicely and we had a huge fight.
Finland has had 'driver's license' for computer users since 1994. 141 000 finnish computer users have got it. The Finnish Computer Driving Licence is an IT examination for everyone, the first of its kind. It is intended for those who have used computers very little, very much or not at all. It is mostly required if you're applying for a certain kind of job.
You can get some more information here
After being laid off from another tech-wreck, I purchased my desktop box as they seemed to have a few extra after downsizing from 10000+ to 7 hundred. My brother, a tech-illiterate, has never had a computer but he wanted one so the kiddies could use it for school, games, etc.
I added a graphics card, DVD, CDRW and mucho software. I dropped it off at his place, gave him a very brief intro (showed him how to start the games) and said call me when you get the internet set-up. When he got the local ISP hardware, I went over, set the PC up, showed him and his equally illiterate wife how to send/receive e-mail and surf safely. I returned home happy with having introduced the family to the wonders of the net.
Not TWO days past before I get a call from my Bro, which I expected because he's techno-illiterate. He asked me where I had put the OS install CD. I was stunned.
It turned out that at work he was discussing with his work buddies (all labourers/plumbers/welders/etc) his computer learning, adventures and problems from the night before. Them being the computing know-it-alls they are, decided that they could 'fix' his problems. Well, with the days work being cancelled due to weather (it was -40 with the wind chill) they headed over to my bro's place for the big fixing session. By the time my brother called me the PC would no longer boot.
Making a long, painful story short, I had to re-install everything (can you believe they actually screwed with the BIOS?). It wasn't the tech-illiterate that was the problem. It was the tech-know-it-all. The people who are most dangerous are those that think they can fix anything with no experience, books, knowledge or common sense.
The car metaphor worked well here too. I told them that the computer may have had a broken tail light or maybe had the equivalent of a weak alternator but that was no reason to replace the entire power train.
I made my brother swear not to let anyone else near his PC. If he did - then he forfeit my gratious tech-support services.
The details of the 'reasoning' on the 'fixing' still keep me awake at night though....